Trump Administration Orders Asylum Seekers To Wait In Mexico For Their American Court Dates, Resolving Long-Standing Concern That People Fleeing Danger Were Reaching The Place They Were Fleeing To

WASHINGTON. Calling it a necessary fix to a system that had grown dangerously functional, the Trump administration on Thursday unveiled the Migrant Protection Protocols, a new policy requiring asylum seekers who arrive at the southern border to wait in Mexico for the duration of their United States immigration proceedings, thereby resolving the long-standing concern that people fleeing danger were successfully reaching the country they had come to for protection.

Under the policy, quickly nicknamed Remain in Mexico, migrants from Central America and elsewhere who present themselves at a U.S. port of entry to request asylum, a right explicitly guaranteed under American and international law, are now processed and returned across the border to await hearings that can be months or years away. Officials explained that the arrangement preserves the migrants' legal right to seek refuge while thoughtfully removing the part where they are permitted to do so from inside a safe country.

"The asylum program is a scam," the President said of the legal process his own government continues to administer, adding that the people using it were taking advantage of a loophole, by which he appeared to mean the law. A source within the administration praised the protocols as a model of efficiency, noting that an applicant who cannot reach the courthouse, cannot find a lawyer in a foreign border city, and cannot safely leave a shelter is statistically very unlikely to win a case, a result the source described as the system finally working.

In practice, roughly 70,000 people would be returned to Mexican border cities under the policy, where humanitarian organizations went on to document hundreds of reported cases of kidnapping, assault, and extortion against those forced to wait. The administration noted that these outcomes occurred on the Mexican side of a line it had specifically drawn for that purpose, and were therefore being studied with appropriate detachment. To accommodate the small fraction of returnees who did manage to appear, the government later erected tent courts near the border in which immigration judges presided over hearings by video, an innovation officials credited with bringing due process closer than ever to the place where it was no longer occurring.

Legal challenges followed almost immediately, with courts repeatedly questioning whether returning vulnerable people to known danger satisfied the nation's obligations, and the litigation would climb to the Supreme Court more than once. Administration attorneys expressed confidence that the policy was lawful, humane, and, in any event, already accomplishing exactly what it was meant to.

At press time, officials confirmed that the number of people granted asylum had fallen sharply, which they presented as evidence that fewer people deserved it.